At last Friday’s press conference, President Obama stated that any attempt by a foreign power to affect U.S. elections is unacceptable and “shouldn’t be a partisan issue.” Mr. Obama also reported that last fall in China he told Mr. Putin “to cut it out” and “there were going to be some serious consequences if he did not.”

Although, as the WSJ points out, “there never seem to be foreign-policy consequences in this Administration, from the red line in Syria to industrial spying.”

This lack of accountability has done real damage to national security, but it did only marginal damage to Mrs. Clinton’s White House hopes.

The President also explained that the emails stolen from John Podesta and the Democratic National Committee were “not some elaborate, complicated espionage scheme.” He said intelligence and law enforcement were “playing this thing straight” and disclosed sufficient information about the hacks for “the American public to make an assessment as to how to weigh that going into the election.”

Mr. Obama conceded that some of the leaked content was “embarrassing or uncomfortable” but all in all “pretty routine stuff.”

President Obama Holds a Press Conference